Although Swarthmore is a small, unified liberal arts college, humanities students (I’m grouping social science into this) gain a very different Swarthmore experience than natural science students. The academic buildings they live in (science center and martin), the people they associate with, the activities they participate in, the homework load, the goals they have in mind. My philosophy professor made a comment on philosophy that sparked deep reflection in me. He said that knowledge is intended to shape who we are as people. If that’s true, the people that humanities students become are entirely different than the people sciences shape students to be, even though both can intersect.
Another comment made my philosophy teacher helped us appreciate the value of the humanities. Although modern education is intended to foster progress, technological, moral, economic, political, the college experience helps us become better humans. Humanities courses force you to question and re-examine personal traditional beliefs. For example, in my religion class, we were given a reading assignment called the “religion of the market” which investigated the capitalistic market system by analogizing it to religion. It made a compelling argument that forced me to think about why I believe what I believe. No, we’re not communist anarchist at Swarthmore. Far from it. But I feel like these humanities classes help me think more intelligently in my every day life. It stretches my willingness to broaden my horizons, to borrow a cliche. While I have been growing personally or “spiritually” as we say in my religion class, I have managed to still be academic. Kierkegaard, Simone Weil, Martin Buber (in religion), Aristotle, Descartes, Dewey (in philosophy), are serious, challenging academic readings. These classes allow me to straddle both worlds of humanities (being a human) and academia.
For a science students, the focus of some sciences classes are far more concrete; especially engineering. Part of this may be that some students want to get pre-med requirements out of the way, early, so freshman and sophomores take more academically concrete natural sciences courses. It’s usually, Bio 1, Bio 2 and Orgo 1, Orgo 2 and so on. Each are lab courses, of course. It’s pretty intense. Another similar major is computer science, where classes, beginning classes at least, are very focused on developing skills and concrete knowledge. Thus, in these beginning years, my Swat experience diverges from other science students’ experience.
Even in religion, there are other courses that are more academic. Such courses focus on more political/historical contexts. And there are many science classes which focus on more human aspects, like Bioethics, Philosophy of Science…I’m sure there are more. I guess in the end you can get what you look for. Some people just don’t appreciate it enough.
Summary: TAKE HUMANITIES/SOCIAL SCIENCE CLASSES.
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I came back this morning from a family friend’s house, where I spent the night. It made me realise how much more relaxed I am away from Swat. I could eat “mindfully”, without worrying about finals at every moment. In college, no matter which one, you never get a break from being a student; it’s a 24/7 thing. Away, I felt more completely human. Now I am back, and I am carrying back that feeling with me to Swat.
